Face me trees for SU, not render

honoluludesktop · 10 May 2010, 21:50

Brooke, The size of the file is subject to its texture (the image). I believe that any 2d tree with decent detail will be 1 - 2 meg on each side. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but anything smaller may not look to good.

Hmmm........ I looked at couple of 3d trees, and found them to be smaller then some of my 2d trees. Does that mean that In some cases is better to use 3d trees?

honoluludesktop · 10 May 2010, 22:24

Gai, When you propose to lighten, do you mean with a external program?

Btw Brooke, you can add "face me" to any component. Just explode, then re-component it, selecting "face me" at that time. If you need SU shadows, some 2d face me trees, ones that have not been cutout, will not display proper shadows in SU.

brookefox · 10 May 2010, 22:31

@gaieus said:

edit the image file with just one click

I so wanna do that!!

Thanks guys, but I must respectfully....

Please see the 3 unattributed files attached, with apologies to the authors who nonetheless get my praise and thanks for making something worth saving and using, IMO. None are perfect for my needs, mostly on aesthetic grounds, but they approach what I seek.

Comments?

tree decid thin foliage good face me.skp

tree decid - face me leaf sections with solid trunk .skp

treetoottree.skp

brookefox · 10 May 2010, 22:48

@honoluludesktop said:

Btw Brooke, you can add "face me" to any component. Just explode, then re-component it, selecting "face me" at that time. If you need SU shadows, some 2d face me trees, ones that have not been cutout, will not display proper shadows in SU.

Thanks, HD. The kludge is on. I do prefer a little shadow when desired, even if imperfect.

Gaieus · 10 May 2010, 23:49

@honoluludesktop said:

Gai, When you propose to lighten, do you mean with a external program

Yes. Just right click the face (withthe texture on) or the texture thumbnail "In model" and "Texture" > Edit texture image". It will load the image fileinto the image editor you define under Preferences > Applications. If you now resample the image and save it with a bit of compression adjusted to your needs, it will instantly update itself in SU.

Brooke; check this topic out and download Alan's tree. Turn on hidden geometry to see the trick how you can use a single shadow casting component for all of your face me's without having to trace each one around.
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=173618#p173618

brookefox · 11 May 2010, 01:06

Thanks, Gaieus. I guess I should not be surprised that folks are as particular about their trees (even only as entourage) as they are about the rest of it.

honoluludesktop · 11 May 2010, 02:05

Gai, OK I understand. Silly not to think of that myself as I am always adjusting the texture that way for other matters. Oh well, thanks:-) I opened Alan's model and noticed that the face me, face me's cast shadows, But are not cut out. Is that right, and am I wrong about needing cutout surfaces for shadows in SU?

Btw Brooke, those are very light trees, I like the top one. When opened, I noticed that most of the work to cut out the tree for a SU shadow was already done. If you spend the time to learn how to do this, it will be easy in the future. I can now make a medium distance 2d person from a photo in about 15 minuets. Clients love to see themselves in their renderings.

honoluludesktop · 11 May 2010, 03:04

Gai, I got it, Alan made a shadow cutting out a transparent face, and set the face of leaves to "no shadow". Wow, clever. Is that a common technique for most modelers?

Gaieus · 11 May 2010, 10:52

I don't know how common it is. I generally do not care about shadows in SU as eventually I render my models wher alpha transparency (or a clipmap) will do.

Certainly FormFonts (that Alan also works for) do care about efficiency in SU and try to optimize these models. If you fill your scene with Warehouse trees without a closer look what they are, you machine can crawl easily. This is where FF is careful at.

ScottPara · 11 May 2010, 14:33

Something like these?

Scott

brookefox · 11 May 2010, 16:41

Scott, those to me are nice images, of saplings, but without the skp.s, it's hard to say, really (heh,heh).

I want also mid and large trees; mostly what I see are small. I must try editing, certainly, but ti is really a wholly different structure.

HD ~ I saw the hidden shadow casting faces in there. Thanks for noting also that the visible faces have been set to cast no shadow.

ScottPara · 11 May 2010, 16:53

I am working together a large collection I will be offering soon (150-200 trees/plants/shrubs), and these will be part of that collection. They will have "summer" and "fall" version of all the trees.

Scott

Richard · 15 May 2010, 00:45

Brooke I'm surprised you didn't just search Tree PNG's on the net and make some yourself in half the time you've been searching for any good skippies?

brookefox · 15 May 2010, 19:18

Thanks, Richard. I was looking for something shy of 11 million results, but so far, not much. Perhaps it's time for me to try my hand.